Hydrochemistry, water quality and land use signatures in an ephemeral tidal river: implications in water management in the southwestern coastal region of Bangladesh

Despite its complexity and importance in managing water resources in populous deltas, especially in tidal areas, literatures on tidal rivers and their land use linkage in connection to water quality and pollution are rare. Such information is of prior need for Integrated Water Resource Management in water scarce and climate change vulnerable regions, such as the southwestern coast of Bangladesh. Using water quality indices and multivariate analysis, we present here the land use signatures of a dying tidal river due to anthropogenic perturbation. Correlation matrix, hierarchical cluster analysis, factor analysis, and bio-geo-chemical fingerprints were used to quantify the hydro-chemical and anthropogenic processes and identify factors influencing the ionic concentrations. The results show remarkable spatial and temporal variations (p < 0.05)…